“WHAT?” LILY demanded as her friend Judith Carrington pulled her toward a carriage. “What’s so important you couldn’t wait until we got to Violet’s house to tell me? So important you nearly made me drop my niece, not to mention almost dislocated my arm dragging me out of there?”
Before climbing inside, Lily searched for her family in the crowd. Her father was easiest to spot, tall and trim with deep green eyes, his real hair still as jet-black as the periwig he wore for his grandchildren’s baptism. Mum and Rose were both dark-haired and statuesque. They looked elegant in their best satin gowns, her mother’s a gleaming gold and Rose’s a rich, shimmering blue. Lily waved to them, then pointed at Judith, signaling that she would ride with her friend.
The Ashcrofts were a handsome family, in truth. Looking at them, one would never guess they were so eccentric.
Mum waved back distractedly, holding her two-year-old grandson, Nicky, as she busily ushered guests out the door to their waiting transportation.
Feeling Judith’s hand on her back, Lily laughed and lifted her peach silk skirts to duck inside the carriage. “What?” she repeated.
“Oh, just this.” Even though they weren’t ready to leave, Judith pulled the door shut. Then she settled herself with a flounce. “I’m betrothed.”
“Betrothed?” Lily seized her friend’s hands. “As in you’re planning to wed?”
“Well, Mama is doing the planning. But it’s ever so exciting. Come October, I’m going to be a married woman. Can you believe it, Lily?”
“No, I cannot believe it,” she confessed, squeezing Judith’s fingers. The third of her friends to marry this year. Yesterday they’d been children; now suddenly they were supposed to be all grown-up. “Who will be your groom?”
“Lord Grenville. Didn’t your mother tell you she’d suggested he offer for my hand? Father says it’s a brilliant match.”
Grenville was wealthy, but thirty-five years old to Judith’s nineteen. “Do you love him?” Lily wondered aloud. She hoped so. Judith was plump and pretty, but even more important, she was genuinely nice. A good friend who deserved happiness.
“We’ve met just twice. But Mama assures me we’ll grow to love each other—or get along tolerably, at least.” Her hands slipped out of Lily’s, moving to worry the embroidery on her turquoise underskirt. “It will all work out fine, I’m sure of it.”
“I’m sure of it, too,” Lily soothed, wishing she were as certain as she sounded. Lily’s parents had promised their daughters they could choose their own husbands, but she knew it didn’t work that way for most young women.
Her family was different. The Ashcroft motto—Interroga Conformationem, translated as Question Convention—said it all.
The Carringtons, on the other hand, were as conventional as roast goose on Christmas Day. Judith forced a smile and pushed back a lock of bright yellow hair that had escaped her careful coiffure. “Who was that gentleman who stood as godfather?”
Lily sat back. “One of Ford’s old friends. Lord Randal Nesbitt.”
“Wouldn’t it be fun to be newly wedded together, have babies together?” Some of the color returned to Judith’s cheeks. “You should marry him.”
“Wherever did you get that idea?” Lily crossed her arms over the long, stiff stomacher that covered the laces on the front of her gown. “I barely know Rand.”
“Rand?” Judith repeated significantly, and Lily blushed to be caught using the over-familiar name. But somehow she’d always thought of him as Rand, though she’d never realized it before. How odd.
“So what if you barely know him,” Judith argued. “I hardly know Lord Grenville, either. And believe me, he doesn’t look at me the way Rand was looking at you.”
“Looking at me?” Lily echoed weakly. She’d hardly looked at him at all. She’d been focused on the cooing baby in her arms, her sister’s first daughter. Her first niece. Nicky was great fun, of course, but now she’d have a little girl to play house with, to fix her hair, to—
“Upon my word, he didn’t take his eyes off you the entire time.” Judith’s lips curved in an impish grin. “Watching him was more entertaining than the baptism.”
Lily felt her face heat and wondered if Judith could be right—if instead of watching the ceremony, everyone had been watching Rand watch her.
But surely that hadn’t been the case. Why would Rand be interested in her? The two of them had nothing in common. Her friend had seen something that wasn’t there. “You just have the wedding fever,” she said lightly, rubbing the back of her left hand. “Besides, if he’s interested in anyone, I’m sure it’s Rose. They share an interest in languages.”
“Ah,” Judith said with a tilt of her pert nose. “You know more about the fellow than you’re willing to admit.”
Ignoring that, Lily leaned to look out the window. But there was a long queue of carriages. They were going nowhere.
“Who’s that?” her friend asked, following her line of sight. “The girl in pink, coming out of the barn with your brother?”
“That’s Jewel, Ford’s niece. Rowan and she have been friends forever.”
“What sort of friends? And what do you suppose they were doing alone together in a barn?”
“Goodness, they’re but children of ten! Your mind is too much on romance these days. Knowing those two, they were probably planning a practical joke.”
“In a barn?”
Lily laughed at the expression on her friend’s face. “I doubt there’s an inch of Trentingham that hasn’t seen one or another of their schemes. And Lakefield, too.”
Judith looked likely to say more, but the door popped open and her mother poked her head in. “Were you leaving without me, dear?”
“Of course not, Mama.” Judith scooted over to make room. “We just came inside to talk.”
A large, jolly woman, Lady Carrington wedged herself beside her daughter and tucked in her voluminous coral skirts. Before her footman could shut the door, Lily’s striped cat nimbly leapt inside.
Lady Carrington sneezed. “Shoo!” she exclaimed, waving an elegant hand at the creature.
“Beatrix,” Lily said softly, “you cannot ride in this carriage.”
The cat gave her a hurt look before hopping out.
“Much better,” Judith’s mother said as the door shut. She turned to Lily. “This afternoon, I’m hoping your father will advise me about flowers for Judith’s wedding.”
The Earl of Trentingham was nothing if not an expert on flowers. “I’m certain Father will fancy being consulted,” Lily assured her.
The carriage began moving at last. “I’ve my heart set on yellow flowers,” Lady Carrington told Lily, “because Judith looks best in yellow. But she wants to be married in blue. What color will you wear for your wedding?”
“Blue is nice,” Lily said with a vague smile.
She wasn’t ready to think about weddings, and most certainly not her own.
Rose was a year older—her wedding had to come first.